Since God created the world, He also created reality.
We just cannot worry about ourselves.
Work ends up dehumanizing people.
A mother defends herself with a heart filled with love before doing so with words. I wonder whether there is any love for the church in the hearts of those who pay so much attention to the scandals.
Human self-understanding changes with time, and so also human consciousness deepens.
I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess.
Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good.
It also happens to me that when I meet a clericalist, I suddenly become anti-clerical. Clericalism should not have anything to do with Christianity. St. Paul, who was the first to speak to the Gentiles, the pagans, to believers in other religions, was the first to teach us that.
How many young people among you are like this? You know how to give and yet you have ever learned how to receive. You still lack one thing. Become a beggar. This is what you still lack. Learn how to beg. This isn’t easy to understand. To learn how to beg. To learn how to receive with humility.
Do good, we will meet one another there.
If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good.
If sadness comes to you one day with an invitation, tell it you are committed to joy and will be faithful to it your whole life long.
We cannot sleep peacefully while babies are dying of hunger and the elderly are without medical assistance.
It is through an unbroken chain of witnesses that we come to see the face of Jesus.
We can study the whole history of salvation, we can study the whole of Theology, but without the Spirit we cannot understand. It is the Spirit that makes us realize the truth or – in the words of Our Lord – it is the Spirit that makes us know the voice of Jesus.
Poverty is the center of the gospel.
I ask everyone with political responsibility to remember two things: human dignity and the common good.
The goods of the earth are meant for everyone.
Politics is noble; it is one of the highest forms of charity, as Paul VI used to say. We sully it when we mix it with business. The relationship between the Church and political power can also be corrupted if common good is not the only converging point.
The key that opens the door to the faith is prayer.